At the beginning of the new Nathan Fielder-starring web series, simply titled David, the titular protagonist goes to a tarot reading (at the “Good News Psychic”), and experiences the manifestation of the fears everyone preparing for a tarot reading likely has; it starts out as a typical reading — “In your past I see money, achievement, a good job. But…” and so it turns.
As the tarot reader continues looking into his past, she paints a very bleak portrait of what his life has become. “You lost your job…you stole money…you lied.” The cards then reveal that he has problems in his love life — he’s divorced. All of these seem like standard and somewhat unspecific problems, none of which are all that funny, per se. But then David’s told: “In your chest, you have a black stone, like a rock, growing every minute. If you don’t get rid of it, your body will decompose and all that will be left is the rock.” A mysterious little girl in the background declares that he has only five weeks to live, and so the web series begins, charting the goings-on in David’s monotone life as he waits to transform into a stone. The closing image for each episode is a big “To be continued” with the word “David” rolling in surreally slow multiples to an ’80s horror soundscape beneath it — the pacing of the repeating name, “David,” almost seeming to imitate the deadpan cadence of Fielder’s delivery.
So. If you’re up for an alienating and depressing half hour of comedy (?), David’s five five-ish minute episodes are all there on YouTube. (You can also watch the first episode below.)
Nathan Fielder’s character in the hilarious Comedy Central series Nathan For You may seem like one of the saddest people on the planet, but even his body doesn’t seem to be at risk of lapidifying in the near future. Among the other actors who appear to help build David’s lonely existence are Jenny Slate (as David’s ex), Noel Arthur, Nelson Cheng, Sally Berman and Brandi Austin.
The web series comes from Super Deluxe and Dean Fleischer-Camp, who wrote Marcel the Shell With Shoes On.